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Future-Proofing Capitalism: the Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics

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Future-Proofing Capitalism: the Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics Future-Proofing Capitalism: The Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics • Alice Mah* Abstract The marine plastics crisis sparked a wave of corporate interest in the circular economy, a sustainable business model that aims to eliminate waste in industrial systems through re- cycling, reduction, reuse, and recovery. Drawing on debates about the role of corporations in global environmental governance, this article examines the rise of the circular economy as a dominant corporate sustainability concept, focusing on the flagship example of the circular economy for plastics. It argues that corporations across the plastics value chain have coordinated their efforts to contain the circular economy policy agenda, while extend- ing their markets through developing risky circular economy technologies. These corporate strategies of containment and proliferation represent attempts to “future-proof” capitalism against existential threats to public legitimacy, masking the implications for environ- mental justice. The paradox of the circular economy is that it seems to offer radical challenges to linear “take-make-waste” models of industrial capitalism, backed by international legislation, but it does not actually give up on unsustainable growth. We need to tackle the plastics crisis at its root, dramatically reducing the global production of toxic and wasteful plastics. In March 2019, the annual World Petrochemical Conference in Texas introduced a special sustainability seminar to its main corporate agenda devoted to the prob- lem of plastic waste. “There is no plastics crisis,” insisted one industry analyst during the lively debate. “Rather, it is a moment of reflection for industry.”1 Images of plastic in oceans went viral in December 2017, after millions of people watched the final BBC episode of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II with its scenes of marine wildlife choked in plastic. In January 2018, the European Com- mission issued the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, the first European Union policy framework to adopt a material-specific life cycle approach to implementing the circular economy. It included the ambitious target to make * I thank Sandra Eckert, Akwugo Emejulu, Miguel Ángel López-Navarro, Linsey McGoey, Sanjay Sharma, George Ttoouli, and three anonymous reviewers for valuable feedback on previous drafts, as well as David Brown and Thom Davies for research assistance. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 639583) and the Leverhulme Trust. 1. Project researcher’s field notes, World Petrochemical Conference, San Antonio, Texas, March 19, 2019. Global Environmental Politics 21:2, May 2021, https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00594 © 2021 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. 121 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/glep_a_00594 by guest on 02 October 2021 122 • Future-Proofing Capitalism all plastics recyclable in Europe by 2030. China’s National Sword policy came into effect in March 2018, banning foreign imports of plastic and metal waste and throwing a spanner in global recycling systems (see O’Neill 2019, 156–159). The petrochemical industry went on high alert. “We need to make plastic fantastic again,” said a senior industry adviser in his keynote speech on the “Future of Polyolefins” in January 2019. “We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind.”2 But just how worried is the industry? And why is the circular economy so prominent in corporate responses to environmental crises, from plastics waste to food and transportation systems? Derived from oil and gas, petrochemicals are the basic materials in thousands of consumer products, including plastics, paints, rubbers, and solvents. Plastics account for 80 percent of petrochemical markets (Cetinkaya et al. 2018). “This is the first major disruption that the industry has witnessed,” a petrochemical executive told me. “Instead of a technological disrup- tion, it is a social disruption.”3 Major petrochemical and plastics corporations have scrambled to pledge money for ocean cleanups, develop new recycling tech- nologies, and join voluntary alliances with other industry stakeholders. The pillar behind these corporate responses to the plastics crisis is the circular economy, a sustainable business idea that promotes a circular rather than linear economy based on the aspirational idea of “zero waste” through the reduction, recycling, and reuse of resources.4 The industry is worried, but it is also very good at turning a crisis into an opportunity. The circular economy is a convenient way of doing so. Focusing on the flagship example of the circular economy for plastics, this article examines how corporations have sought to contain the circular economy policy agenda to secure public legitimacy and protect and extend markets. It argues that the circular economy offers something grander yet more nebulous than other corporate sustainability discourses: a technological fixto“take-make-waste” models of in- dustrial growth, without actually giving up on growth. The promise of circular growth lies in the fiction that it is materially possible to “close the loop,” ignoring basic thermodynamic laws that recycling requires energy (Korhonen et al. 2018). The circular economy for plastics appears to threaten business as usual, with increasing bans around the world on single-use plastics and ambitious recycling targets. While the petrochemical industry commits to the aspiration of a circular economy with less waste and maximal efficiency, it continues to invest in unsus- tainable projects5 with environmental justice and climate change consequences. 2. Author’s field notes, Future of Polyolefins Conference, Antwerp, January 16, 2019. 3. Author’s interview with a petrochemical representative, Antwerp, January 16, 2019. 4. There are various combinations of Rs in concepts of the circular economy, including the 3R principle of reduction, reuse, and recycle; the 4 Rs of reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover; and the 5 Rs of reduce, reuse, refurbish, repair, and recycle, among others (Ellen MacArthur Founda- tion 2013; Murray et al. 2017). 5. Some examples include INEOS petrochemical projects in Europe, which rely on liquefied national gas; coal-based projects in China; and massive crude-to-chemicals (COTC) projects under devel- opment in China and Saudi Arabia. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/glep_a_00594 by guest on 02 October 2021 Alice Mah • 123 By highlighting the paradox of the circular economy as a technocratic pro- ject for “future-proofing” capitalism against environmental threats, this research extends debates about the role of corporations in global environmental gover- nance (see Clapp 2018; Dauvergne 2018b; Eckert 2019; Levy and Newell 2005; Ponte 2019). In particular, the research builds on political economy literatures in global environmental politics that examine how transnational corporations use sustainability governance to maintain and increase their power by capturing dis- courses, setting standards, and securing capital accumulation (Dauvergne 2018b; Levy and Newell 2005; Ponte 2019). The article elaborates a political economy framework for analyzing corporate strategies for containing and capitalizing on the circular economy. Like other forms of sustainability governance, corporations use the circular economy discourse to enhance their strategic power, but there are differences in terms of scale, complexity, and intensity. The stakes of the circular economy are over the future of global industrial transformation, operating across multiple scales, complex value chains, and competing political interests. The article starts with a brief review of the global environmental politics lit- erature on the role of corporations in sustainability governance. Next, it situates the concept of the circular economy in relation to these debates, showing how the circular economy discourse differs from other sustainability discourses, with political implications for how to tackle complex environmental problems. A case study of the circular economy for plastics is then outlined, based on participant observation at petrochemical industry events in the United States and Europe between 2016 and 2020, qualitative interviews with corporate stakeholders, and a range of corporate and policy documents. The research analysis situates two corporate circular economy strategies in relation to intensifying “wars of position” (Gramsci [1934–1935] 1971) over the future of industrial transforma- tion: first, containment, tracing the rise and consolidation of the circular economy discourse within the petrochemical industry, and second, proliferation, focusing on the example of chemical recycling, a technological solution with uneven toxic risks that experts consider vital for realizing the circular economy. The Role of Corporations in Sustainability Governance Corporations and industries play an important role in shaping global environ- mental governance. Corporate strategies for engaging in environmental gover- nance aim to sustain public legitimacy and market advantage, using a range of defensive and proactive tactics to neutralize threats and seize opportunities. Many sociologists, historians, political scientists, and organizational scholars have ex- amined corporate strategies for addressing environmental
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